Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman
Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman
by Nuala O’Faolain
Sequel to the international bestseller, Are You Somebody?, with a new introduction by Anne Enright, now available in Ireland and UK.
Paperback | 232pp | ISBN 9781848408678 | Release Date: 19th August 2022
Nuala O’Faolain’s first memoir Are You Somebody? became a literary sensation and an international bestseller when it was published by New Island Books in 1996. It launched a new life for its author, at a time when she had long since let go of expectations that anything new could dislodge patterns of regret and solitude.
Almost There opens at that moment when O’Faolain’s life began to change. It tells the story of a life in subtle, radical, and unforeseen renewal. It is a tale of good fortune chasing out bad – of an accidental harvest of happiness. But it is also a provocative examination of one woman’s experience of the ‘crucible of middle age’ – a time of life that faces in two directions, that forges the shape of the years to come, and also clarifies and solidifies one’s relationships to friends and lovers, family and self.
Nuala O’Faolain’s final memoir, Almost There chronicles the pursuit of artistic and personal integrity, and what it is to be a woman in contemporary society, with the signature style and raw candidness of her personal writing.
PRAISE FOR ALMOST THERE:
“Nuala O’Faolain is one of the most important, erudite voices in Irish literature. Her second memoir, Almost There, is a beautiful and truthful map of a terrain only she could chart. This book does not shy away from pain, even as its author seeks – and finds – joy in art, in life, in human connection. I love every page of it.”
“In this magnificent memoir, O’Faolain draws the obdurate outline of the self that remains after the tide of love goes out, filling that empty space with a ferociously honest and utterly compelling account of her ruptured past and tentative present. Raw, shrewd, heartbreaking, and all the more poignant for her keenly felt absence.”
